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Review – Hustler’s This Ain’t Glee XXX (2010)

As a self-proclaimed musical theatre connoisseur, I was not sure what to expect from an adult musical… so I was a little anxious as I held Hustler’s This Ain’t Glee XXX (2010) in my hands.

Now, to be fair, I must confess that I had these same anxieties and trepidations (to some extent) before my first time watching Fox’s “Glee.” You see, in my opinion, musicals are very rarely supposed to leave the stage…

And since I’m being honest here, I also must confess that the main reason I started watching “Glee” in the first place was because of Lea Michele (sigh). I’ve followed her career ever since I saw her on stage three years ago… and ever since then I’ve lusted over more than just her voice. So after only a couple of episodes of “Glee,” I was hooked; but as a self-proclaimed musical theatre connoisseur, I don’t tell that to a lot of people ;)

Now, as much as I love “Glee” and before I even get to This Ain’t Glee, I must acknowledge that I definitely find some parts of the television show to be problematic. The racial and queer politics of “Glee” tend to rub me the wrong way. What role is this series playing in our everyday understanding of these heavily loaded issues? Is it trivializing to set race and sexuality issues to Ke$ha songs, allowing the characters to dance their problems away?

I’m not sure about the answer(s) to any of these questions, but those are the sorts of things I had in mind as I embarked into the Land of Glee (without clothes).

Initially, I was taken aback by how physically similar the This Ain’t Glee characters were to the ones in “Glee.” In particular, I noticed the striking similarities between Andy San Dimas and Lea Michele (yes!). The musical numbers were also strikingly similar to the songs that had been used in various “Glee” episodes… only the This Ain’t Glee songs featured amazingly creative lyrics about getting off, blowjobs, and big tushies (among other things).

The storyline of This Ain’t Glee involves the same dilemmas and dramas and singing and dancing that you see on the show… except that here, each musical number is punctuated by all the sex that you wish would happen on Fox! (well, maaaybe not a-l-l the sex – damn that lack of “boy-boy” in straight porn!) I especially liked the cheerleaders’ pom pom dildos.

Most of the scenes were between a “teacher” and a “student,” which actually proved to be a little too much for me to handle. Even though this film was obviously not some Mary Kay Letourneau mockumentary, I couldn’t help but think about the sex scenes as student/teacher… enjoyment, not so much.

On a different note though, I thought the strap on scene featuring This Ain’t Sue was really thought provoking. In “Glee,” we always see the Sue character dressed in sweatpants, drinking protein shakes, and doing other stereotypically lady coach-type things; and Jane Lynch, the actress that plays her, is openly lesbian. Sue and Jane are fodder for a lot of discussion along the lines of the loaded issues I mentioned earlier (re: queer politics). The fact that we (finally?) get to see a version of Sue sporting a strap-on (and using it) puts a different spin on her character, which I found veeery interesting.

This Ain’t Glee proved to be far more entertaining than I thought it would be, but honestly – I found myself more interested in the creative musical numbers than the sex scenes. This might be because I love musical theatre or because, no matter how hot it may look in Glee, student/teacher sexy time is not really my thing.

Rather than go that route, if I were to ever “Glee” up an adult musical, I would consider including musical performance in the sex scenes themselves – how great would that be?? Actors singing while having sex??!! Ahhh, just a thought….

But the next best thing – here are some performers auditioning for This Ain’t Glee… amazing!

The Ain’t Glee XXX also won AVN Awards (2011) for Best Original Song and Best Music Soundtrack – omg!!

BTS: The behind-the-scenes footage lasted about thirty minutes and made me feel as though I was watching a homemade video. There were a couple of scenes featuring the filming of the actual movie. Here, they corrected the actors and suggested improvements for delivering lines and singing to the music. These shots definitely made the filming process seem like a great deal of fun.

In between these shots, the BTS guy interviewed some of the main characters, which definitely made the actors seem more human and likable. And get this – the last scene in the BTS features a very graphic zit popping moment with one of the actors. Now, in my opinion, you can’t get more “human” than zit popping.

– Vittoria Buzza

Vittoria Buzza is a queer Mexicana scholar in her early twenties. Her main research interests lie in the examinations of cultural tensions embedded in the visibility of Latina bodies in the media. Follow her on Twitter at @VittBuzz and/or email her here.